How a permanent menu posed as a challenge for the Wrights

It has been more than three years since Travis and Jody Wright implemented a menu that changes daily at The Shark on the Harbor.

As a result, many dishes are made off the cuff, without recipes. The staff there works with whatever fresh ingredients they have for the day. If they don't have something particular, they simply don't offer it.

With their new venture, Culture Authentic Eatery, it's a whole new ballgame, as the menu will be a bit more static. While the inspired cuisine will change each year at the fast casual restaurant, menu items won't change on a day-to-day basis.

"It's an entirely different process," Travis said. "We're standardizing everything. Everything needs to be the same every time."

Because menu items are staying the same for a year, a challenge for the Wrights will be to stay true to the food when it comes to sourcing ingredients.

"We will not negotiate or trade on our quality or integrity of the ingredients to create a consistent menu," Jody said. "Even if it's consistent for one year, we absolutely will not do that."

Menu strategy

For the Wrights, the goal was to make a menu that would generate enough appeal for a customer to come back weekly for a year and not lose interest.

"We wanted to have enough variety to make that happen, and we think we've done that," Travis said.

Fifteen main dishes are on a tentative menu, ranging from shrimp ceviche to salads, wraps, sandwiches, stews and causas — a mashed potato cake typically served chilled or at room temperature — and different items featuring chicken, fish, beef, steak, pork and vegetables. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options are also available.

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(Photo: Staff photo by Joe Lamberti)

"One of the things we've learned from our many years of full service restaurants is as we evolved as a society, there are a lot more allergies and dietary restrictions," Travis said. "We've learned to adapt with that."

Prices are not set just yet, but the goal is keep the price point between $9 and $15. The turnaround time from the order entering the kitchen to out the door is about 9 minutes. Both were elements considered when trimming down the menu.

As for what's going to be popular, the Wrights will wait and see.

"You never know what people are going to fall in love with as it goes," he said.

The star of the show

While they wait and see, one item will have top billing.

"The chicken's going to be the star of the show," Jody said. "That's the idea and there's no doubt about it."

So about that chicken: Its marinade draws upon the different cultures influenced by Peruvian cuisine, with ingredients including soy sauce and aji amarillo peppers, and also a local touch, with Evolution Craft Brewing Co.'s Lucky 7 Porter.

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(Photo: Staff photo by Joe Lamberti)

Each chicken is marinated in a bag with a precise amount of marinade. When it's time for it to go into the rotisserie oven, it will cook at 400 degrees for 35 minutes, go into a browning cycle for 6 minutes and then into a holding pattern in 160-degree heat for 20 minutes before it's taken out.

The chicken will be sold as whole, half and quarter birds, while the meat will also be used for stews, sandwiches and salads.

In testing, the kitchen staff learned that a chicken that was held for 20 minutes tasted better than one that came out right after the cooking.

"Our only theory is the longer it held and sucked its juices back in and marinated itself in its own juices (the better)," Travis said.

The sandwiches are served on a purple potato whole wheat bread, based on a recipe developed by pastry chef Kaity Baltzell and produced by Crack of Dawn Bakery in Berlin.

Sides include hand-cut fried potatoes using the Shark's secret house seasoning, a Peruvian purple potato salad with beets and carrots and fried yuca — a starch similar to a potato — with a Peruvian cheese sauce.

The mystery of the tres leches cake

While the Wrights' trip to Peru gave them answers to many questions they had, one of their high priority questions — what the tres leches cake was all about — left them with the realization that maybe there wasn't an answer, after all.

Over the course of their three-day trip, they made it a point to order the cake wherever they ate. In turn, they got many varieties of the dessert, without much consistency.

While the Wrights were in Peru, some were served on a plate. Some were served in a bowl. Many had berries. Others had chocolate. On the plane ride back to the United States, they were served a tres leches cake that looked a bit more like a block of tofu.

"It got to be funny because they were all so very different," Jody said. "You couldn't wager a guess what it would look like when it came out or what it would taste like. So we came back realizing there was no answer."

As a result, the Wrights realized they can take a creative approach to the Peruvian dessert, one of two desserts on Culture's menu, as long as some of the bare criteria was met.

After about a year of trials and tests, the Culture tres leches cake will feature sweetened condensed milk, caramel, cocoa nib praline and fresh berries, along with a vanilla bean cake.

The cake will be served in 8-ounce canning jars. The jars will be sauced on the bottom, with the batter on top and micobaked before being scored, sauced again and topped with fruit and a garnish.

"The traditional tres leches would have a sauce that was scored and dripped down into the cake," Jody said. "It just made sense to do that and it worked."

The cake complements a second dessert on the menu, a port wine chocolate and citrus parfait.

Another delay

Permitting has delayed the anticipated opening of Culture by about a week, the Wrights said. The new goal is to open the restaurant April 23.

In Culture Shark, we take you through what it takes to start a restaurant from the ground up.

Reporter Jon Bleiweis and photographer Joe Lamberti have been following the process and progress of Culture Authentic Eatery's development since the day owners Travis and Jody Wright — who also own The Shark on the Harbor just down the street in West Ocean City — got the keys and will provide updates along the way in this series.